Next week the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society (HFES) will hold the 2015 International Symposium on Human Factors and Ergonomics in Health Care: Improving the Outcomes (#HFESHealth2015) in Baltimore, Maryland.

The event, which is hosted by the John Hopkins Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality, will be held April 26th – 29th at the Baltimore Marriott Waterfront Hotel.  More than 450 attendees will have the opportunity to attend 77 oral presentations, 9 discussion panels, and 117 posters  (see full program here) in four tracks:

• Clinical and Consumer Health-Care IT Track
• Clinical Care Settings Track
• Medical and Drug-Delivery Devices Track
• Patient and Health-Care Provider Safety Track

One of the discussion panels is titled Do Standard UCD Methods Work in Health Care? and will take place on Tuesday the 28th between 3:30 and 4:30 pm.  The panel is chaired by Ross Teague, PhD, and will include Rollin J. (Terry) Fairbanks, MD, MS,  Christina C. Mendat, PhD, and Eric F. Shaver, PhD as panelists (see bios below for additional details).

This interactive panel will address the question Do Standard User-Centered Design Methods Work in Health Care? from the perspectives of a health care software vendor, consultant, clinician/researcher, and medical device vendor.  An additional bonus is that each of the panelists have extensive experience applying UCD methods in and outside of the health care domain.

We’re planning to include input from attendees in the form of Twitter questions and comments posed prior to and during the session using the #UCD4HC hashtag, along with questions from audience members.  Also, it’s our hope that the discussion will continue in the networking session that will follow our panel.

It should be a great panel (and audience) discussion!  We hope you’ll be able to join us.  But, if not, please tweet your questions and thoughts using the #UCD4HC hashtag – or post a comment – and we’ll attempt to answer them during the session.

Panelists

Ross Teague, PhD

Dr. Teague is the manager of the User Experience organization at Allscripts where he leads a team of researchers and designers in the creation of products and services that improve patient and provider lives. He’s led the effort within Allscripts to create a User-Centered Design process that teams throughout the organization can follow to receive value whether they have expertise in UCD methods or not. Ross has been leading research and design efforts for medical devices and healthcare software for more than a decade. He’s also worked as a product design strategy consultant in the areas of consumer, industrial and commercial products.

Rollin J. (Terry) Fairbanks, MD, MS (@TerryFairbanks)

Dr. Fairbanks is the director of the National Center for Human Factors in Healthcare and of MedStar Health’s Simulation Training & Education Lab (SiTEL), Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Georgetown University, attending emergency physician at the MedStar Washington Hospital Center in Washington, DC, and Adjunct Associate Professor of Industrial Systems Engineering at the University at Buffalo. He is a human factors/safety engineer, board certified emergency physician, former private pilot, and former paramedic and EMS Medical Director. His work focuses on applying the science of safety to medical systems, based within MedStar Health, a 10-hospital $4.7B non-profit healthcare system in the Baltimore and Washington DC region.

Christina C. Mendat, PhD (@christinamendat)

Dr. Mendat is the Director of Human Factors at Human Factors MD. Her work is focused on leading clients successfully through the human factors regulatory process. Christina’s passion is helping clients who are new to human factors or have had unsuccessful human factors programs or submissions. She takes great pride in leveraging the science of human factors with a practical application. This year she is serving as co-chair of the Medical Device Track.

Eric F. Shaver, PhD (@ericshaver)

Dr. Shaver is a Human Factors Lead with FUJIFILM SonoSite.  His work has emphasized achieving an optimal fit between people, technology, and work systems to facilitate their safety, performance, and satisfaction.  His professional interests include health care innovation, leadership development, team performance, and applied decision making.  He blogs at ericshaver.com and actively engages with others on Twitter @ericshaver.